They put the ‘beep beep’ in the baby Roadrunners

As Coach Larry Coker, the highly successful football coach whose team won a national championship at Miami, designs, plans and awaits the 2011 inaugural season for the UTSA football team, it brings to mind a similar scenario in 1980 when the Roadrunners planned to join the ranks of major college basketball.

Rudy Davalos was the moving force to tip off hopes of a Division I basketball program competing with major universities in Texas and the Southwest Conference. Rudy had been a star at San Antonio’s Edision HIgh School and was an All American at Southwest Texas State. He was named Athletic Director by Dr. James Wagener and with Davalos’ reputation and strong personality,there was never any doubt that the one-time Spurs assistant coach to Tom Nissale and Bob Bass in the early days of the pro-franchise would construct a winning program.

Rudy conducted a nationwide search for a coach with a winning attitude, basketball knowledge and Christian character. He found him at Division II Eastern Illinois, where 42-year-old Donald Eddy had taken his team to six NCAA post-season tournaments in his 12 years and had produced winning high school teams, as well.

So in 1980, Eddy left the Midwest for San Antonio, bringing with him not only his pretty brunette wife, Elizabeth, and his three children, but players Michael Pickens and Dennis Mumford, and an assistant coach, Terry Morse.

Morse agreed to come as a part-time instructor since there wasn’t that much money left in the budget with the hiring of assistant coaches Larry Gatewood, former Baylor University star, and legenday Texas Western forward, Nevil Shedd. Shedd was recruited by Hall of Fame Coach Don Haskins to be a part of the team that defeated Adolph Rupp’s Kentucky Wildcats for the NCAA championship.

So Eddy and his two assistants had to hit the recruting trail for a basketball season that wouldn’t begin until 1981. It wasn’t easy. Mumford and PIckens were the core of his first team and UTSA was a new university with high hopes, limited budget and recruits who were not highly sought players.

Davalos had puit together a schedule that would have challenged Hank Iba. The 1981-82 season opener was against Eddie Sutton’s nationally ranked Arkansas Razorbacks, a team that included future NBA stars Joe Klein and Alvin Robertson.

Rudy and I had been friends for almost ten years, as we had traveled together when he was a Spurs assistant and Terry Stembridge had asked me to come aboard as the radio play-by-play announcer when he was doing television. Rudy called and asked if I could put together a radio package for at least 20 games of the initial 81-82 season. . He and I solicited local businesses to sponsor the broadcasts,and that was like asking a fiance to meet your mother-in-law for the first time.

Businessmen like Jerry Meyer and Bill Hopper and other “gamblers” agreed to help. We went to John Barger, General Manager of WOAI Radio, and convinced him to carry the games. Having Barger and Davalos conduct negotiations was like watching Dick Cheney in a debate with Barack Obama. But the deal was sealed and we were on the air….with an unknown entity.

The first season was more than just a losing experience, it was a character-uilding year. Eddy had been building bridges and George Gervin had been setting Spur and NBA records. One player came across that bridge that changed the fortunes of the neophyte program HIs name was Derrick Gervin, a chip off the old “Ice” block because he was George’s younger brother. His arrival, with the addition of a mammoth center by the name of Rick Doyle, transformed the Roadrunners into a hardwood predator.

Derrick became a scoring machine as he scorched the cords for a career average of almost 26 points a game, a UTSA record. Against Baylor he had 32 at half time and finished with 52. Against McNeese State, he had 48.

Eddy had also recruited other players who would play a major role in the UTSA success. Ike Thornton, Robert Wallace, John Williamson, Scott McKoin, Gary Heyland and many more.

In the early years, Davalos had finagled an invitation to the prestigious”Great Alaskan Shoot-out ” in Anchorage. UTSA flew to the frigid city over the Thanksgiving holidays and lost twice in the four team tournament that included Arizona, Villanova and North Carolina, not a bad line-up for a Roadrunner team still growing new feathers.

In December of 1983, UTSA played in the Myriad in Oklahoma City, and I’ll never forget the night that a young giant from Tulsa set an all-time OU scoring record as he wore out the nets with 61 points. He was no doubt the greatest player in Sooner history, and when Wayman Tisdale recently passed away, he left a pinnacle that may never be climbed again.

As the 1984-85 season came to a close, the Roadrunners were 21-7 with a final game against the University of New Orleans on the schedule in the Bayou City. Rudy had called me, saying the NCAA radio people wanted to talk with me about the possibility that if UTSA defeated New Orleans and finished at 21-8, it was likely the Roadrunners would receive an at-large bid to the tournament since they were not yet affiliated with a major conference. Well, if memory serves me, during the first few years, I believe we had made like 16 road trips to Louisiana and had won two games. The officiating was definitely, what is called, “A Homer” as the men in stripes were not inclined to be neutral.

We lost that night 47-45 in a game with more home court calls than in a game between cousins. There went the NCAA possibility.

To prove a point: Sometime earlier, we had played at Nichols State in Thibodeaux, La., and four technical fouls were called on UTSA and Eddy was ejected. The Colonels shot eight free throws, more than the margin of victory and Trainer Bernie LaRue was thrown into the breach as acting coach. I had never seen that happen and I don’t think it will ever happen again.

In 1985-86, Eddy’s kids started at 13-0 but someone up there didn’t like him and

by that time, Rudy had decided to take the Athletic Director’s job at the University of Houston. Jim Skaines was named acting A.D. with Davalos’ departure and he didn’t

support Eddy, so he was fired.

It was a blessing in disguise. Eddy now conducts nationwide basketball camps for girls and boys and two years ago, he had 57 camps in 13 states. This year he will have just 39 in nine states, including two in San Antonio, the second week of June at San Antonio Christian Schools and in July at First Baptist Church of Castle HIlls.

Davalos has retired from the athletic director’s job at the University of New Mexico, where he had gone after his years at Houston, Gervin played in the NBA with several teams, Shedd is a speaker in demand following the Jerry Bruckheimer movie, “Glory Road” about that Texas Western Championship team, Terry Morse is still basketball coach at Marshall High School, Larry Gatewood lives in Houston, Robert Wallace played for the Globetrotters for several years, Rick Doyle played in France and is a millionaire and the other former Roadrunners have etched their own success stories.

As Larry Coker looks to the future and travels the highways seeking recruits for his first football team, it will be a much easier task to sell the school, recruit higher profile players and play in a major statdium, the Alamodome, all because some pioneers paved the way those 30 years ago. They did indeed put the “beep beep” in the Roadrunners of 2009.